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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Lingerie Sew-Along: Tap Panties Finishing Touches Part 11!

I'm ba-ack. Well, to finish my vacation off nicely I had a horrible cold the whole time, and now that we're back and my husband is even more sick than I was, and we've added jet lag and no sleep to the mix? I'm stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllll sick. Ugh.

I really hate leaving you all hanging though, and I'm heavily dosed up with cold medicine right now, so LET"S DO THIS!
There are a few different ways you can finish your inside facings. You can serge the edges and tack them by hand onto the seam allowance, pink them and leave them loose, douse them in vodka and set them on fire, but my favorite is to tape them down. Not the scotch tape way, of course, but the fusible kind like this Dritz Stitch Witchery.

You can use it to fuse two layers of fabric together, or to finish raw edges with seam tape.

Here I have laid down a strip of the (shinny) fusible tape. Next I just stick the (very pretty) vintage rayon seam tape over top and a quick press with the iron makes it permanent.

I finished the whole of my facings raw edges like this, making sure that the facing raw edge matched up with the raw edges of the seam allowance where the yoke joined the pantie.

Now the closure part is pretty important. If you were thinking like me and wanted just one closure on one side... think about this first: If you have just one closure, as it is, it will not really fit over your hips. Seriously... this will be a problem. The solution is to have the closure on both sides, or to cut the one closure about 2" deeper and just add more buttons or snaps.

These pictures show the ribbon loops that I sewed to my bound edge to close the openings on the "V of Doom" version. If you were lucky enough not to do that, then here is how you make a placket to close your panties.

I have a very large collection of sewing books from every era and almost all of them are silent on how to make a placket in shorts or tap pants. They all stick to skirt plackets which are a bit different. The best way I ever found to make a lingerie placket is in Art of Dressmaking published by Butterick 1927 which actually tels you the best placket to sew for UNDERWEAR. Yay!
Here it is:

Trust me, this is way better than I could explain a placket, especially given that my fabric is all plaid and I'd pretty much make you go cross-eyed trying to make heads or tails of my pictures. So that's how you sew a placket. For other closure ideas, you can bind the edges of the slit and sew hooks and eyes, buttons or whatever you like.

And now for the finished project photos! (Hey, no judgement. I was trying to do this at lightning speed so I get get out the door to catch a plane :)... Plus I need to loose 10 lbs and have a sit down with my photographer who would much rather be playing video games than hold still long enough to take pictures... I will name no names.)

Well? How did your turn out? Can we have pictures? Obviously no one is expecting you to email me photos of you wearing lingerie, but some nice hanger shots would be great! Also, questions, comments? Did I miss anything? Is anyone out there? :)

3 comments:

First of all, it's gorgeous, Gorgeous, GORGEOUS! I love the combination of the lace with the plaid, and the bias trim with the lace, and the red accents, and the vintage buttons. I never would have thought of finishing facings with fusible tape and I love it, this will make facings lay much flatter and look cleaner. Thank you for the great idea.

Second, I think we ALL think we need to lose 10 pounds. I for one am sick of worrying about my 10 lbs and I'm sure everyone else is too. So, let's just reset our expectations and say we're at a healthy weight right now. Problem solved!

Firstly, you really don't need to loose any weight let alone 10lbs! Secondly, I love this set! I had planned on sewing along, but time constraints just wouldn't allow it. I bought the pdfs though and I will come back to this at a later time...I'll make sure I share my finished results with you too! Thanks again for all your time and effort!

I have the same The Art of Dressmaking book from the 20's Isn't it fab? I LOVE your lingerie although I would wear it to the beach! I am starting a sewing linky party today called Sew & Tell Saturday at my website and I am hoping to get some vintage sewists aboard to post their projects because there aren't any sewing linky parties to show off vintage creations. I hope you can come over and post a link to your blog today! Thanks so much!Justine @ Sew Country Chick